


the one who blooms in the bitter snow

by harukatenoh



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Second Person, South Zone And All Of Its Horrible Occurences, yall know the drill, yes ive decided hub is a character that should be tagged thank you.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 12:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18571915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harukatenoh/pseuds/harukatenoh
Summary: You weren't made to create. You were made to destroy. Still. Some things have to be made.





	the one who blooms in the bitter snow

**Author's Note:**

> my friend beane aka the devil tagged me in [this art](https://beanefiel.tumblr.com/post/184362384399/peppermoss-i-miss-u) today and it sent me spiralling so hard that i vomited up whatever this was in about an hour. fuck south zone!
> 
> work title from i raise my cup to him by anaïs mitchell

There is nothing worse than an unmarked grave. 

Even with how many times you have fallen, only to be brutally dragged back into the world of the living moments later, even when the pool of blood you leave in your wake fades: it does not go unmarked.

You look at your blood, pink to red to purple to black, not acid nor ambrosia but just that, just  _ blood _ . Every time you see the magenta sink into the ground you think  _ no, not unmarked _ , you think  _ tomorrow this grass will grow, _ you think  _ i bleed and i heal and i bleed again _ . You watch your blood sink into the world, you  _ pour your blood into the world, _ and the world blossoms underneath your care. Tomorrow, the grass will grow taller. That is a mark. That is your mark.

When your beloved dies, it is in the sands, in the dirt, in the desert. There is nothing beneath his slumped figure to coax out into the open; no seed to nurture or root to water—life for a life. 

You don’t think it is what his mark should be, anyway. You can content yourself with the small, the quiet, the simple, but for him—no, never for him. Not when he and his memory stand larger than life around you, and certainly not when you feel like every piece of the world has gone and crumpled in on itself in his wake. 

His mark on the world, on you, is unquestionable. Palpable. Impossible. You cannot hope to recreate it. But you can recreate something, at least. No matter the effort, no matter the result, you know this at least. You know he would be happy.

So when you have assembled yourself enough in the slipstream of your grief, the first thing you do is pull yourself towards him. You aren’t quite tall enough to keep his cloak off the ground, so it drags behind you as you walk. It makes you feel cowed and humbled. You feel like an impostor, a marionette. Wrapped in the cloak of somebody you can never live up to, carrying a weight you can never quite bear.

His hub hovers nearby, at attention but not wary. You don’t calculate as a threat anymore.

You say “I’m going to get his sword, okay?”. Your voice trembles.

You know from experience with your own hub that they are never forceful, nor are they assertive. Even when you are dizzy from blood loss and stumbling in your path, your hub never goes past a gentle but insistent beeping, a concerned reminder. So when your words are greeted with nothing but silence, you aren’t surprised. Still, you wait.

You wait, until his hub gives a series of confused beeps. You take this as the permission you’ve been waiting for, because even if they aren’t made to be wilful, it doesn’t change the fact that he was, and still is, its charge.

You slowly extract his sword from its sheath, willing your hands not to shake. His hub moves to hover over your shoulder, opposite side to your own. It watches as you gently press a kiss to the hilt of the sword, and then bury it into the ground in front of him.

It is a start. You look over at his hub and tell it quietly “Wait here. I’ll be back, okay?”

You wait until it beeps an affirmative at you to leave. When you do, your steps are quiet across the hard earth. They bely the weight of your shoulders. You feel yourself sag, and then sag again, with every step away you take.

It’s utterly, utterly selfish of you, but you wish you could lie down beside him. You let yourself indulge this awful, traitorous notion of yours, where you’re allowed to let go for once. You imagine your blood fanning out around you, seeping into the earth. You imagine flowers blooming around the two of you.

To start with, you go East. You go underground, until you find a brightly lit, never dying lantern. You extract it from its mount with a grip more desperate than you thought you could have. You tuck it under your arm and ignore how the flames threaten to flicker over you. 

You take it back to his grave, or the beginnings of it, and you place it beside his figure. You look at the lantern and you remember warmth, comfort and hope.

You keep going.

From the West, you bring back a shard of crystal. You snap it off with a vicious snarl, and it’s the first time you’ve touched the crystals with your bare hands. They’re as cold as you expected them to be, and even sharper so. You cut yourself, and you watch as crystal greedily grows up from where your blood drips onto it.

_ Oh, _ you think.  _ This will do _ .

You come back and you dig the crystal into the ground on one side of him. With careful precision, you run your sword down your arm, and watch as the blood starts to flow. His hub beeps insistently at you, but your hub, used to this, stays quiet. It’s almost endearing.

In a semicircle around him, you lead the crystal, dripping blood and watching it shoot out of the ground in response. Life for a life for a life. It forms a barrier around him, guarding him where his sword does not reach.

You step back and survey your work, with two hubs hovering by your side. He is in the centre, the perfect keystone of your world. A wall of crystal to guard him, a sword to support him, a lantern to light him. Almost. It’s almost there.

In the North, you forgo the buildings and the settlements. You climb up and up until you’re at the peak of the mountain, and all that surrounds you is the glow of pink and the shine of snow.

Once upon a time, he told you that he loved the snow. How calm it made everything seem. How indomitable it was. You, on the other hand, never liked the cold. 

You pull your mask down and crouch to the ground. You cup your hands in the endless white, ignoring how the cold bites at your fingers and you still yourself. You watch it begin to melt in your fingers as your breath fogs, and you think you get it. Your thrashing heart slows, just a little. 

Strangely, the snow is everything you ever loved about him. Calm. Indomitable. Transient.

You return from the North with nothing tangible, but everything nebulous. You’re fast enough that your fingers are still slightly stiff with the cold, frosted at the ends. You take your icy hands and you step closer, brush your fingers along his cheek. He’s cold, but you’re still colder. From the North, you bring a last understanding, a final connection.

You say “It used to snow everywhere. Do you remember?”

Your memories are vague. It’s been so long, but you think you remember a time when the world wasn’t quite like this. When pink and heat and fear didn’t drip into the very air. When every winter, white would cover the world, no matter what it was or who it housed. 

“I hope that, after I finish this, it will again. I’d like it if you could see the snow again.” You’d like it if you could see the snow again too, but your hopes don’t run high. They rarely do.

When you’ve taken in it all again, the way his cheekbones sloped, the way his mouth stretched in a smile, you step back. Here lies your beloved. You leave with him light, shelter and protection. You leave with him love. You leave with him a grave that shall never be disturbed, a mark on the world to remember by. He was the wall at your back and the sword in front of you and the light beside you and the caress at your face. 

You repay it all to him. You pull your cloak closer around you and you hope that it’s enough.

With a final, drawn out beep, his hub goes to sit beside him. It stares up at you for a few seconds, and you’re shaking again, you know, but you don’t realize how badly until your sword falls out of your hands when it depowers.

It clatters to the ground. You think  _ this is it, then _ . You think  _ tomorrow this grave will remain _ . You think  _ i bleed and i bleed and i bleed again _ .

You pick up your sword and you continue. Letting go comes another day. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this fic, please consider donating to my ko-fi! it's linked in [my carrd](https://arashiyama.carrd.co/) \- thank you so much if you do!


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